7/02/2009 @ 12:00PM

Hire Bigger Than You Are

Scottish advertising genius David Ogilvy (1911-1999) gave the world memorable ad campaigns such as “the man in the Hathaway shirt” and maybe the neatest headline ever for a car ad: “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.”

Ogilvy also wrote two books regarded as classics in the ad game: Confessions of an Advertising Man and Ogilvy on Advertising. Ogilvy liked detailed research (he once worked at George Gallup’s Audience Research Institute) and direct marketing. His insights on these subjects have value for Web commerce even today. You can bet Ogilvy’s books are read at
Google
.

But Ogilvy on Advertising is also a great leadership book. Ogilvy describes how he built his ad firm into a global giant. Recruiting good people was the key. “When someone is made the head of an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain,” wrote Ogilvy, “I send him a Matrioshka doll from Gorky. If he has the curiosity to open it, and keep opening it until he comes to the inside of the smallest doll, he finds this message:

“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.’”

What drives large companies toward mediocrity? Part of the answer is contained in Ogilvy’s first sentence. (Yes, I know Ogilvy’s wording is a bit insensitive for the 21st century ear, but don’t let yourself miss his terrific point.) Large companies, at some point, create management layers where no young talent would dream of going but where the less bright and ambitious can hide out for years. The individual middle manager at BigCo is complicit in this tragedy because he or she has little incentive for hiring well. It is generally the middle manager’s job to meet budget and otherwise not cause problems for BigCo.

Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, have every incentive to hire well–and must. A good team can make the entrepreneur rich.

Entrepreneur maven and former
Apple
marketing guru Guy Kawasaki writes, “In the Macintosh Division, we had a saying, ‘A players hire A players; B players hire C players’”–meaning that great people hire great people. On the other hand, mediocre people hire candidates who are not as good as they are, so they can feel superior to them.

If you start down this slippery slope, you’ll soon end up with Z players; this is called “The Bozo Explosion.” It is followed by “The Layoff.” I have come to believe that we were wrong–A players hire A-plus players, not merely A players. It takes self-confidence and self-awareness, but it’s the only way to build a great team.